Whose road is it, anyway?

Is it not reasonable that people who have the wherewithal to own a vehicle pay a price for parking it on public roads?

Traversing from street to street, the mind wandered as a cloud through stray thoughts. Walking past the narrow roads, narrowed further by the line of high-end vehicles parked on either side, who can deny India shining? Yes, in every household, save BPL families, who, by official version, are vanishing, there are motor vehicles for every adult, every adolescent. Where on earth can these vehicles be parked other than on roads? When India has the world’s largest cattle population, can Kerala be far behind with its record for automobile population? Had Malthus been alive, an Essay on the Principle of Automobile Population, would have warned us of the impending catastrophe on our roads, thanks to the exponential growth of vehicle population vis-à-vis stagnant roads.

‘Laissez-faire parking’, apart from reducing the effective width of roads, causes inconvenience to smooth traffic, and more seriously to vulnerable pedestrians. Widened portions of the roads get fully occupied for parking — Parkinson’s law in operation — questioning the very public purpose behind land acquisition. Semi-sleeper air buses, and even call taxis, find our roads a happy parking ground for long hours. Some venture on the footpaths, recently done up, as if made specifically for them.

Authorities turn a Nelson’s eye to this free encroachment on public right by the relatively affluent. Is it not reasonable that people who have the wherewithal to own a vehicle pay a price for parking it on public roads? Few progressive societies indulge in this luxury of unmindful revenue waiver. The proceeds could benefit the road safety of pedestrians or the health care of destitutes; certainly a better substitute for the Karunya lottery.

While granting building permits or licences for commercial establishments, local authorities should ensure adequate provision for parking within the private compound without straining the public road. But do they do that? If it overlaps, it should lie to the account of the owner of the building/establishment, and should not be state-subsidised, at the cost of the pedestrian public. Perhaps, a prominent board at the site of such buildings — displaying details of the parking area as per the approved plan — cautioning citizens against their fundamental right to walk being usurped might serve as an eye-opener, an effective deterrent against this free ride.

In recent crimes that shocked the nation, parked vehicles were the receptacles used for perpetration of crimes — yet another reason why parking on our roads needs some degree of discipline.

An essay most of us have read at school, but forgotten, is A.G. Gardiner’s On the Rule of the Road. Certain excerpts flashed through my disturbed mind:

“A stout old lady was walking with her basket down the middle of a street in Petrograd to the great confusion of the traffic and with no small peril to herself. It was pointed out to her that the pavement was the place for foot-passengers, but she replied: ‘I’m going to walk where I like. We’ve got liberty now.’ It did not occur to the dear old lady, that if liberty entitled … it also entitled the cab-driver to drive on the pavement, and that the end of such liberty would be universal chaos. Everybody would be getting in everybody else’s way and nobody would get anywhere. Individual liberty would have become social anarchy.

“There is a danger of the world getting liberty-drunk … in order that the liberties of all may be preserved, the liberties of everybody must be curtailed … that you may enjoy a social order which makes your liberty a reality…

“We are all liable to forget this,… It is in small matters of conduct, in the observance of the rule of the road, that … we are civilized or uncivilized ...”

No coincidence that footpaths in our major cities (where they exist) are about 1 metre high and often even fenced, to deter not only illegal parking but also to safeguard the life of the hapless pedestrian who would otherwise be at the mercy of the recklessly speeding automobilist. Might is right, and nowhere is this more true than in our country.

We, affluent middle-class people will build our houses utilizing every square mm of our plot, and encroaching on public space by building part of our driveway on the road itself. Civic sense is a term which only exists in some book somewhere.

Like much else, if the rule of law were to truly exist, then this intrinsic lack of civic sense would be compensated to a certain extent.

from:
Vivek

Posted on: Aug 19, 2013 at 15:16 IST

I will agree with Mr Natarajan that what is important for India, given our size and population, is not the freedom to purchase more and more private vehicles, but an efficient and well planned public transport at reasonable cost, that will entice people away from private transport. Singapore is a great example of this, and so are some of the recent efforts that are happening across Europe. Having lived in a suburb of Cochin for the past several years, I can see that this is easily achievable, with some planning. It is also crucial that a hub and spoke model, that includes multi level parking and usage of bicycles be included into such a planning.

from:
Ullas Ponnadi

Posted on: Aug 18, 2013 at 17:43 IST

Often autorickshaws and call taxis in particular block bus stops and hinder passengers by stopping and prospecting for passengers right at the bus stop. A stiff fine of Rs 1,000 for halting within ten meters of a bus stop on either side will either end the menace or make the traffic cops cousins of our rich MPs.

from:
Matthew Adukanil

Posted on: Aug 18, 2013 at 16:32 IST

Yes, parking space has to be provided in busy areas in the city or parking bays provided at sufficiently wide roads. A fees has to be collected based on the duration of the parking. All multistoreyed building(marketing complexes, public amenities such as hospitals, cinemas etc should provide parking facility in the ground floor. ( I think this is in the building rules, but people make it as car parking and use it for setting up shops!!! Yesterday I saw my son paying USD 30/Rs 1800.) for parking his car for one hour in Boston harbour area in USA.

from:
Prof Mohandas

Posted on: Aug 18, 2013 at 16:28 IST

In the town where I live, dozens of two-wheelers are parked right on the road in front of the show rooms. They do not care even if it is a bus stop.One has to struggle to get to the town bus.In our country, everybody is free to do what he likes with nobody daring to question them. Whatever we read about liberty etc in our schools in the era gone by are not being taught nowadays. So nobody cares.

from:
Iyaswamy

Posted on: Aug 18, 2013 at 14:41 IST

Well said, Mr. Kuruvilla. However, the simpler solution may be to increase the Road Tax, which the car-owners are supposed to pay annually. Apart from being administratively simpler than installing parking meters or other systems to collect parking fees, it could also act as a mild deterrent to the maddening increase of car ownership. Psychologically, paying a bulk amount upfront might dissuade one from buying a car, rather than paying say 20-50 Rs. at the time of parking. The problem is that regardless of how the tax (or parking fee) is collected, we are not sure of its effective utilization by the authorities, for improved roads, pedestrian spaces and such. And another challenge is how to change people's un-civic behaviors such as double parking, parking on side-walks, parking that blocks drive-ways, etc.

from:
Sundararajan S. Gopalan

Posted on: Aug 18, 2013 at 09:05 IST

If one buys a car that is 5feetX8feet, he or she owns 40sq feet of the city, for free! And this privilege is movable too. When someone gains somebody has to lose. Who is that?

The exploding population of automobiles is a different kind of filth that is going to choke us. Progress? but the direction?

Liberty! If freedom exceeds ones intelligence, that is not good for himself and others.